izzy

what would happen if our hearts beat at the exact same time when we were having sex?
this train is splitting atoms in hot air speeding through the German countryside under night’s heavy breathing blanket.
everything feels far away, even this carriage, this compartment, this body.
from Paris to Berlin dreaming of Van Gogh skies – looking at Portrait de l’Artiste, I could imagine his hands rough and raw even though they weren’t in the picture and all of him was physically present despite the frame.
Van Gogh, the man suicided by society.
Artaud, his ally, some kind of psychic confidant.
even Inferno’s 2005 hit can’t explain this feeling
thinking about the selfie I should take to mark my arrival and whether my arms are long enough to capture anything more than my head.

*

sarah

We collapse our way onto seats on a Regionalbahn train into Frankfurt, tripping on the armrests and cradling our packs like fat zippered dogs on our laps. Over the top of mine is a woman, maybe thirty-five, looking mildly alarmed at us, our luggage, our English chattering. Her skin is bad, marked with the sort of red lesions that treat the awkward line between sleep deprivation, badly picked acne and casual methamphetamine use. Behind us, a plump policeman with greying hair and fine-rimmed glasses ambles up to diffuse an explosion of noise from an inspector huffing at a woman clothed in spare children. The policeman rolls back, greeted by an approving murmur from a young woman opposite him. She talks with the sort of throaty low voice that suggests that her gaze is meandering around the policeman’s pelvis. He rumbles happily back to her. The train rounds a corner of track with a hideous screech of metal, and I share a sympathetic ‘god-that-noise-is-awful’ look with Tired/Acne/Meth woman. The metal bleats again and she jumps. She has the sort of defeated strength worn by the sort of person whose job largely involves being clicked at by suited men. The train arrives. We pinball machine our backpacked way through the aisles, she disappears into the lofty metal of the station.

*